Right now the reserve is dwelling to 23 breeding pairs of red-fronted macaws, about 13 p.c of the species’ complete reproductive inhabitants, in addition to 200 different chicken species together with Andean condors and peregrine falcons.
This can be a nice instance of how Armonía and different conservation companions in Bolivia are “targeted on poverty discount within the area,” says Tjalle Boorsma, conservation program director for Armonía, “and dealing along with farmers on sustainable agriculture fashions like beekeeping or implementing tourism.”
The outcome? Folks equate defending endangered species with defending their very own livelihood.
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Fundación Natura Bolivia (Natura) has an analogous strategy to conservation. They provide tangible non-monetary incentives — like new tanks to seize consuming water, roofing supplies for a barn, or fences for livestock — in alternate for landowners’ settlement to guard the forest and pure assets round their group. These reciprocal “watershared” agreements (Acuerdos Reciprocos por Agua in Spanish) are sometimes funded partly by municipalities the place individuals profit when upstream landowners have interaction in practices that hold water clear and ample for downstream customers.
Since 2002 Natura has enrolled over 34,000 households in watershared agreements that preserve 730,000 hectares of forest in dozens of municipalities round Bolivia. A standard thread tying many of those agreements collectively? Halting deforestation.
Pink-fronted macaws, together with many different wildlife species, lose their pure meals sources when farmers reduce down or burn the forest. As a substitute, these macaws eat peanuts, corn and different crops. In retaliation, landowners may poison the birds, kill them with slingshots, or entice them to promote on the black market.
As an illustration, Jaime Cardona grows grapes, passionfruit, sugar cane and different crops together with his nine-year-old daughter and spouse within the city of Saipina, 25 kilometers east of the reserve. He used to haze macaws off the property, however now acknowledges how useful the birds and wholesome forests will be for his household’s bottom-line. “We want the timber. That’s what attracts the rain,” Cardona explains. “In case you would not have forest on the mountain … there is not going to be good climate, and good climate is important for the grapes and the sugar cane to develop.”
Defending forests can be a approach to help the nascent ecotourism trade in central Bolivia. About 10,000 individuals stay within the regional municipality of Saipina, the place 48 households have entered watershared agreements that preserve 5,067 hectares. Saipina’s mayor, Efrain Garrado Llenes, hopes the conservation efforts will “protect the animals which might be nonetheless right here” and entice guests to return see spectacular birds just like the macaws sooner or later. “We need to depart one thing for our youngsters for tomorrow in order that they don’t undergo,” he says.
Simply 30 kilometers east within the municipality of Omereque, red-fronted macaws feed on the bean-like pods from the native soto tree. Up to now, landowners reduce down the timber to gasoline fires to course of sugar cane. Natura helped construct a brand new consuming water tank for the small group of Ele Ele that provides 70 households. In alternate, the individuals agreed to preserve 5,000 hectares of forest.
Sérgio Mendoza, a farmer in Ele Ele, is “very grateful” for the assistance. He says the earlier water tank was 30 years previous and falling aside. Because of the settlement with Natura and Omereque’s municipal authorities, “we’re seeing the forest regenerate and develop again,” Mendoza says. They now watch macaws “go by way of all afternoon in little teams” to forage within the forest.
In Ceibas, a farming group that sits on a picturesque hillside within the Pasorapa municipality, individuals selected particular person incentives as a substitute of 1 giant group venture in alternate for safeguarding 1,078 hectares of forest. One household obtained a conveyable mix to grind wheat or corn, one other a brand new roof, and one other a water pump to irrigate crops.
“Taking good care of the macaw can remedy issues for the communities,” explains Máximo García-Cárdenas, coordinator of Natura’s red-fronted macaw program, an initiative supported by the British Authorities’s Unlawful Wildlife Commerce Problem Fund.
